...﻿The movie El Cid is the story of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar of Spain. The story takes place 1,080 years after the coming of Christ between the Christians and Moors in Spain.
African Emir Ben Yusuf is a Moor, who believed that the Prophet Allah had commanded them to rule the world. He wanted all the doctors to invent poisons for their arrows and scientists to invent new war machines to destroy the Christians.
Rodrigo on his journey to his wedding day to Chimene his wife to be, encounters a village that had been burned down by Yusuf’s soldiers. Rodrigo helps stop further killing and imprisons the Moor soldiers.
Rodrigo upon returning to Vivar is told that he must turn the prisoners over to King Ferdinand for execution, but he refuses and instead has the Moors promise to never invade King Ferdinand’s land. They tell Rodrigo they have a name among their people for a warrior who is just and has courage to be merciful it is El Cid. They promise to leave and only befriend those of this land. Upon their release soldier Don Garcia tells King Ferdinand that Rodrigo set free the Moors and should be held for treason. Rodrigo believes that if we are all Christian and the Moors are Christian as well then why are we killing each other.
Count Gormaz is Chimene’s father tells Don Diego, Rodrigos father that his son is a traitor in front of King Ferndinand. Rodrigo challenges Count Gormaz in a sword fight for shaming his father and their name....

...“El Tonto Del Barrio”
Humbleness and charity towards one another is one of the lessons “El Tonto del Barrio” illustrates to the readers through the protagonist of the story, Romero Estrado. The story begins describing with very specific details the life of “El Cotorro” or Romero. Mr. Armas continues the story inviting all of the people from “El Barrio” to come along in the story to show their influence in the life of Romero. What happens in the story, Mr. Romero seems to be the happiest person from el Barrio. He always whistles joyfully and sings songs as he sweeps the sidewalks every morning for all of his neighbors. The Tortilleria America, The XXX Liquor Store, and the Barelas Barber Shop are some of the places he stops by to clean. Everybody in the neighborhood greets him and they all pay him with food and protection but not with money.
The real concern about this story was when Seferino wanted to pay Romero for his work, “Mira, Romero yo te doy 50 centavos por cada dia que barras la banqueta” (Armas, 123), “Fifty cents for every day you sweep the sidewalk for us”. A real change starts with this action, you see Romero doesn’t need any money he has everything he needs, the stores give him food and take care of him. It is great for Seferino trying to help someone, but in this case it shouldn’t be Romero, because he’s taken care of by the barrio. Romero didn’t have any...

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Spanish-Excursion Paper
November 8, 2013
Excursion Paper
My tour around El Museo Del Barrio in Harlem, New York was a very memorable visit and I got
in touch with my Spanish ancestors. There was mix of positive and negative Spanish history but none the
less a very knowledgeable trip. One part of Hispanic culture that I feel is at the top of importance is the
reign of Fidel Castro. To live under his rule must of have been terrifying and a childhood testimony of it
is a in depth view of the dictatorship. The author of a piece of art whose name is Bernardo Navarro
Tomas. He made 3 paintings of fidel castro. The first one was a picture of four images of fidel castro and
he is speaking through microphones. The next painting was a few collages of different facial expressions
of fidel as his age progressed. The last painting was fidel speaking through a microphone and miniature
fidel figures walking around with roses at their mouth’s, and subtitles all around saying “el coco te
comere.” This is also known as the boogie man will eat you. It is was pretty obvious throughout global
culture that Castro was an evil dictator, but the image portrayed of Castro shown in all his paintings is
with his bushy beard and lit cigar. Also it is noticed that in the majority of Tomas’ paintings Castro’s
mouth is always open and his jaws are unusually large and It is said by Tomas that is because of all the
talking and...

...Humbleness and charity towards one another is one of the lessons “El Tonto del Barrio” illustrates to the readers through the protagonist of the story, Romero Estrado. The story begins describing with very specific details the life of “El Cotorro” or Romero. Mr. Armas continues the story inviting all of the people from “El Barrio” to come along in the story to show their influence in the life of Romero. Summarizing what happens in the story, Mr. Romero seems to be the happiest person from el Barrio. He always whistles joyfully and sings songs as he sweeps the sidewalks every morning for all of his neighbors. The Tortilleria America, The XXX Liquor Store, and the Barelas Barber Shop are some of the places he stops by to clean. Everybody in the neighborhood greets him and they all pay him with food and protection but not with money. The story seems to go well until Seferino, the son of Mr. Barelas, comes along. Seferino decides to pay fifty cents to Romero for sweeping the sidewalk of the Barber Shop, but the problems begin when El Cotorro starts to demand a raise in his pay. Seferino refuses to give him the raise; therefore, Romero stops doing his job and his personality of a good guy seems to change to being a drunk and rude person. Towards the end of the story Romero returns to being his old self again, and ironically the reasons for his change appears to be because of the departure of...